


The Missing Piece

by tommohoran223



Series: The Past is the Past, but the Future is Bright [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Hydra (Marvel), James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, Memory Loss, Parent Tony, Parent-Child Relationship, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 21:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19049023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommohoran223/pseuds/tommohoran223
Summary: “Do you ever get the feeling that something in your life is missing?” he asks Pepper that night as they lie in their bed.“No, I don’t,” Pepper answers, turning her head to look at him. “Why? Do you?”Tony’s eyes meet hers, and that’s the first time he realizes that she knows something he doesn’t. There’s complete understanding in her soft expression, and he can’t help but think that maybe the hole in his heart isn’t just a side effect of being a superhero.“Yes."-Or, a better look at the last twelve years through Tony, and how he feels something is missing but isn't sure what it is.





	The Missing Piece

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! Here is the second installment to this series! A couple of you guys requested to be able to see Tony's POV, so here you go! 
> 
> If you haven't read the first part, Left in my Memories, I'd recommend you do to be able to understand what's going on better. That being said, I guess you don't have to if you don't want to but... just go check it out!
> 
> Enjoy!

All Tony can feel is pain.

Red hot pain that pierces his skull and makes him see stars. It’s the kind of pain that strikes like a hot iron and then ebbs away, only for it to strike again even harder the next time around. He hears someone yelling faintly, the screams echoing off of whatever small room he’s being kept in.

It takes him a moment to realize that his eyes are open. The pain starts to fade away, leaving behind a dull ache, and his head clears enough to realize that the yelling is coming from himself. He forces himself to stop yelling, breathing deeply and grunting when he tries to move, but he finds that his arms and legs are being held down by straps. He thrashes against the restrains, trying to move his head to see where he is, but his neck is strapped down as well.

The only thing Tony can see is the ceiling—it’s dark and grimy and leaking with something wet. He hears a door to the small room he’s in open, and heavy footsteps approach the table that he’s strapped down to. A man appears in Tony’s line of sight. He’s dressed in a bright white lab coat, and his jet black hair has wisps of silver in it. The man’s mouth is twisted into a cruel smile, and Tony feels unease shoot through him

“We had to stop the machine to make sure you didn’t die of brain damage,” the man explains, and Tony frowns in confusion he doesn’t understand what he’s doing here.

“Who are you? What the hell are you doing to me?” Tony demands, his voice low as he continues to struggle against his restraints.

However, the man just raises his eyebrows.

“You’ve already forgotten what we’re doing? Interesting,” the man says. “Write that down,” he orders, gesturing to a glass window that Tony assumes has someone behind it. Then, he turns back to Tony. “I wouldn’t fret too much about what’s happening. Once we’re done, you’ll forget everything you know about Project X.”

Then, he reaches over to a comically large metal switch handle that’s resting on a large machine. He grips it and pulls down.

Once again, Tony is engulfed in excruciating pain.

It feels like something is digging inside his brain, poking around in search of something specific. He squeezes his eyes shut, too weak to hold them open any more. As he lays there, he can hear a voice calling him, a familiar voice, but he for some reason cannot put a name to it.

_“Mr. Stark!”_

There’s a face. A face that’s blurry and out of focus, and no matter how hard Tony tries, he can’t make out who it is. However, as the face starts to slowly float away into the darkness, Tony can’t help but feel as though it’s a face that is important to him, a face that means something to Tony’s life.

There are many emotions being ripped away along with the face. Fondness. Pride. Parental affection.

Love?

Love.

Tony Stark doesn’t simply “love” just anyone. The list is very short, consisting of Pepper, his mother, and Rhodey, so if that face is another name on said list, Tony doesn’t want to let it fade away. So he reaches out, trying to grab at the presence to pull it back.

_“Mr. Stark!”_ His fingers touch figure, and for a split moment, he manages to hold onto it, to keep it from floating away for good. _“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good…”_

Tony can hear the voice more clearly as he starts to pull the person back, and the face starts to become less and less fuzzy.

_“I just wanted to be like you.”_

Then, the pain is amplified by what feels like a hundred, and the figure slips through his fingers. Tony swipes up, trying to grab it, but it’s too far out of reach and the pain is just too much. The figure and the voice dissipate, along with the emotions that came with it, until it’s gone.

A piece of Tony stolen away from him, faded into the darkness.

The pain doesn’t let up, and Tony finds himself slipping into that same darkness until he can’t feel anything at all.

 

* * *

 

“Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark, wake up!”

Tony hears an unfamiliar voice calling him. He opens his eyes to find himself in a cage with a boy staring down at him, a kid no older than sixteen. His brown hair is falling into his eyes, his cheeks stained with tears and his hands with blood.

Once Tony opens his eyes, the boy lets out a sigh of relief, but the tension in his face doesn’t let up.

“Mr. Stark? You remember Miss. Potts, right? Your fiancee?”

Tony frowns, lifting himself up into a sitting position. How the hell does this random kid know he and Pepper are engaged? Last he checked, they hadn’t gone public with their engagement yet.

“Pepper? Yeah, I remember her.”

The boy deflates with relief, a smile spreading onto his face. Tony squints, not understanding who this boy is or why he’s talking to Tony like they’re… friends or something, because Tony’s fairly certain he’s never met this kid before.

Because why the hell would he be friends with a teenager? God knows Tony Stark does not have time for hormone stricken snot-nosed kids.

“Oh, thank God,” the kid says, “I knew it was a load of horseshit—”

The boy finally stops talking, taking a moment to look at Tony closely, his smile falling a little bit. Tony takes this moment to chime in with his question.

“Uh, kid? Who are you?”

Horror flashes across the boy’s face, and he stumbles back, grabbing at his brown curls.

“It was… it was me?” the boy breathes, his eyes wide, and Tony’s list of questions just continues growing.

“What was you? Where are we? Where are your parents?”

The boy flinches at that last question, looking at the wall, unable to look at Tony.

“I don’t… I don’t know anymore…” the boy whispers, his volume level so low that Tony can barely make the words out.

Tony wants to ask more questions because as far as he’s concerned, he’d just been sleeping in his bed cuddled up with Pepper. Now he’s trapped in a strange dirty cage with a headache and a teenage boy dressed in red and blue spandex. However, he doesn’t get the chance, because the boy slowly backs away from him until he’s at the opposite side of the cage, and whenever Tony says anything, the boy refuses to answer.

At one point, he thinks he hears the boy crying, and a spark of emotion swirls in his gut. Is that emotion… no. It can’t be.

One might say that he’s feeling… protective? Like a parent would feel when their child is crying and there’s nothing they can do to console said child.

Tony strongly disagrees with that thought.

Tony Stark doesn’t feel parental protectiveness for random boys he gets randomly captured with.

It’s just out of the question.

So he brushes the emotion off, managing to look away from the boy and stare at the wall instead. They sit in silence for hours, until War Machine bursts into the cell, and when his helmet retracts he glances from Tony to the boy. Rhodey comes closer to Tony, kneeling down in front of him.

“Hey, you alright, Tones?” his best friend asks, scanning him over for injuries.

Tony doesn’t say anything for a moment and watches as the Black Widow enters the room. Like Rhodey, she looks from Tony to the boy until she directs her attention to the boy, walking over and crouching down in front of him. She whispers something that Tony can’t hear, so he redirects his attention to Rhodey.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Got a headache, but other than that, I’m good.”

“Well then let's get you out of here,” Rhodey says gently, wrapping an arm around Tony’s middle and helping him stand up, supporting some of his weight. As they start to exit the cell, he spares a glance back at the boy, who now has Natasha kneeling in front of him. The boy meets his eyes, and Tony feels pity for the kid, whose face is red and splotchy—probably from crying.

“Hey, I don’t know who that kid is, but get S.H.I.E.L.D. to find his parents, okay?” He says to Rhodey. His friend gives him a weird look, but keeps walking, turning to look at the boy for a moment before they’re out of the cell and the only part of the kid they can see is his back.

He has to say, he’s a little startled when he hears Natasha talking to the boy with an uncharacteristically soft voice, but he can’t make out her words.

Then, he’s led out into the sunlight where their extraction team is, and in all the chaos of the next week or two, the boy doesn’t cross his mind again.

 

* * *

 

Life goes on.

Though everything is seemingly the same, sometimes Tony can’t shake the feeling that something is… missing. It’s strange, and he has no reason for it, so he decides to chalk it up to the fact that he’s a superhero, and that’s how all superheroes feel. He tells himself that everything is perfect—he’s about to get married to the love of his life, and he’s on friendly terms with the Avengers for once.

So why does he feel like things aren’t perfect?

He notices the feeling for the first time when he’s working in his workshop alone, his ACDC music playing over the speakers.

He’s working on his suit designs when he discovers a breakthrough in his tech. Excitedly, he turns his head over to an empty desk that’s adjacent to his own, mouth open and ready to share. However, he doesn’t get the chance, because he realizes that no one is there. His smile falls as he gazes at the empty chair, and wonders why seeing the desk empty and unused makes him feel weird.

There’s no one there—so why does it feel like someone should be there?

He shakes his head, turning back to his work, trying his best to ignore the strange feeling in his chest.

Tony finds himself doing this all the time. He’ll look over at that desk, not sure who he’s expecting to see. He begins to think that maybe he’s just lonely and in need of a companion. So he starts an internship program, with the first person to apply being the one and only Harley Keener. Soon enough, his lab is full of young people with an eagerness to learn.

But no matter how many people there are to talk to, he still finds himself looking over at that same spot.

 

* * *

 

Over dinner one night, Pepper drops the bomb.

“Tony, I’m pregnant,” she says, and Tony thinks he might explode from the pure happiness and joy he’s feeling right now. The family that he’s always dreamed of having wouldn’t be something that he had to yearn for anymore. Months pass and her stomach grows rounder and rounder, and Tony decides that even though he’s never even met his daughter, he would lay down his life for hers in a heartbeat.

He buys a lake house secluded in the woods to raise his family in. It’s not small by any accounts, but it’s homey enough, and there’s plenty of space for a child. It’s the American Dream at it’s finest.

Rhodey is over one day, and he and Tony are sitting on the couch, the former telling the latter about what’s going on with the Avenger’s, adult beverages in their hands. Tony had retired from being Iron Man when they’d found out about Morgan, but he loves to hear the updates—specifically, the new heroes that they’re training and bringing up. It’s nice to have a fresh set of faces for the public to adore.

Pepper comes into the living room, all dressed up and about to leave for a meeting that she claims is “unskippable”.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” Pepper smiles, leaning down a tad to give her husband a kiss.

“Don’t be too long,” Tony requests, but she’s already out the door, leaving Tony and Rhodey in silence for a moment.

“So,” Rhodey starts, breaking the silence. “Are you nervous? About the baby I mean.”

Tony leans back and looks out the living room window as he takes a moment to think over his answer.

“No. Well, maybe a little,” Tony says finally. Rhodey chuckles, taking a sip of his drink.

“All new parents feel that way,” Rhodey assures him. Tony just nods, continuing to look out at the trees which were being gently swayed by the breeze of the lake. “Hey, you okay?”

How does Tony tell him that he’s not nervous because the parental role feels familiar to him? He’s never been that great with kids, yet he feels like he’s returning to a job that he’s already previously worked before. And maybe he wasn’t the best at said job, but he feels ready. Ready to love a child who deserves the world.

“Yeah, peachy,” Tony nods again, taking a swig from his glass. “It’s just that… the idea of being a parent? It doesn’t feel scary or new. I don’t know why.”

“You’re going to be a great father, Tones,” Rhodey says, and Tony’s taken aback by the abundance of confidence in his friend’s voice.

“How do you know that?” Tony questions his friend. Rhodey just sighs, giving a humorless chuckle.

“I just do.”

But when they fall into silence again, Tony catches something flash across Rhodey’s face, a look of pain and sadness.

Two months later, Morgan H. Stark is born, weighing seven pounds and eight ounces. When he holds her in his arms, swaddled up in a little pink blanket, tears come to his eyes as he gazes down upon her. Her brown eyes flutter open to meet his, and he smiles, trying to swallow back his tears, but failing miserably.

“Hey, Maguna,” he whispers, mindful of Pepper who is currently asleep. “I love you so much.”

The words are familiar and roll off his tongue.

He’s said those words before—he distantly remembers—but for the life of him, he can’t remember who he said them to.

He just knows that whoever the words were directed at, he meant them just as much then as he means them right now.

 

* * *

 

“You’re going, Tony. I mean it—get dressed.”

Sure, he’s a grown adult man with a baby, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still whine like he isn’t. He’s currently groaning because Pepper is forcing him to go to Bruce’s intern's high school graduation. It’s just that he thinks it’s weird that he’s going to the graduation of a kid who he’s only met like, twice. He finds it even weirder that apparently, the entire Avengers team is going as well.

“He’s one of the smartest kids you’ll ever know,” Pepper tries to convince him while she’s dressing their baby in a sundress and little sandals that most likely won’t stay on her feet for more than five minutes. “He got a full ride scholarship to MIT.”

“Why is this so important to you anyway?” Tony asks, eying her while he pulls on his Armani suit.

Pepper is quiet for a moment, before saying, “it just is.”

Tony frowns at her answer because it in no way answered his question. Why was going to some random kids high school graduation so important to his wife? However, he shakes the thought off entirely as he puts on his right shoe, then his left.

The graduation is one of the most boring events Tony’s ever attended, and that’s certainly saying something. The announcers said the “A” names, then the “B”s and the “C”s and so on. He busies himself with looking at his phone as the announcer says name after name.

“Peter Benjamin Parker.”

His eyes snap up at the name, and he looks down at the stage in time to see a brown-haired teenager walk across the stage and accept his diploma. He recognizes the name; he’s heard it before. He looks at Pepper, who’s currently playing with Morgan’s feet while the baby sits in Happy’s lap.

“Pep? Where do I know that kid from? The Parker kid?”

“Honey, that’s Bruce’s intern. The one we’re here for,” Pepper says with a laugh. However, when they think he isn’t looking, Pepper and Happy exchange a look—one that’s both serious and sad.

Later, after the ceremony, he goes to find the kid, who is currently surrounded by the entire Avengers team. He wants to congratulate Bruce’s intern, but the moment Peter lays eyes on him, the kid looks like he’s seen a ghost. His face is pale and his eyes are wide, and Tony assumes it’s because he’s the Tony Stark, aka Iron Man.

“Congratulations, Mr. Parker,” Tony says, sticking out his hand so the kid can shake it. Peter takes it hesitantly while stuttering out a small, “thanks”. “Say, Pepper said you got into MIT?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

There’s a spark that lights up in his chest. A feeling that isn’t unfamiliar—he just felt it the other day when Morgan had finally said “Dada”. He doesn’t even know Bruce’s intern, but he’s so unbelievably proud of the kid.

He doesn’t know why.

He doesn’t understand the meaning behind many of his feelings these days.

He just… feels.

Maybe that’s enough.

 

* * *

 

Morgan is growing up fast.

Too fast, Tony thinks, but he’s told that all parents feel that way.

She’s seven-years-old now and is as smart as a kid twice her age. Being a stay at home dad while Pepper works, Tony’s favorite thing to do is spend time with her—they have tea parties, play superheroes, and attempt to cook, only to almost always end up ordering take out afterward.

People ask him all the time if he and Pepper will have another child.

“Maybe a son?” People say. “You would have one of each, after all!”

(He doesn’t ever fail to notice that when they’re asked that question, Pepper gets a faraway look in her eyes.)

But his family is perfect. He loves his wife and daughter more than anything in this world, and he’d do anything to keep them safe and happy. He wishes for nothing else, and he and Pepper have no desire to bring another child into the world yet—what they have is enough.

Sometimes, however, Tony gets the feeling that something is missing from their happy little family. For instance, there will be times when the house feels too quiet, even with all three of them inside of it. Or during holidays, when he’s shopping for presents, he’ll see a piece of Star Wars merchandise and have the urge to buy it for someone—even though he doesn’t know a single person who is into Star Wars.

Or, there will be times when he mindlessly acts or talks as if his family is not only made up of three people.

“Table for four,” Tony once told a hostess when he took his family out to dinner.

“You mean three, Tony?” Pepper asked gently.

“Huh?”

“We need a table for three, not four.”

“Oh. Yeah, right. Table for three,” Tony corrected himself. The hostess nodded and pulled out three menus. “I don’t know why I said four.”

Another time, Morgan was begging him to play with her, but he was busy with returning emails for Stark Industries.

“Maguna, I’m sorry but I’m really busy right now,” Tony frowned at her, adjusting the reading glasses that were resting on his nose. “Maybe your brother will play with you. I have important work to do for your mom.”

Tony didn’t even notice his mistake until Morgan’s face wrinkled in confusion.

“Daddy, I don’t have a brother,” Morgan said, the statement coming out more like a question than anything.

“No, you don’t,” Tony agreed, taking off his reading glasses and leaning back in his chair. “Just—why don’t you go watch TV?”

He sat there, rubbing his face with his hands because he didn’t understand why he kept talking about a child that he didn’t even have.

“Do you ever get the feeling that something in your life is missing?” he asks Pepper that night as they lie in their bed.

“No, I don’t,” Pepper answers, turning her head to look at him. “Why? Do you?”

Tony’s eyes meet hers, and that’s the first time he realizes that she knows something he doesn’t. There’s complete understanding in her soft expression, and he can’t help but think that maybe the hole in his heart isn’t just a side effect of being a superhero.

“Yes,” he whispers, turning his head to look up at the ceiling.

“Sometimes we lose pieces of ourselves without even realizing it,” Pepper says, rubbing her hand up and down his bicep.

He hardly sleeps a wink that night because of those words—or rather, the words that she didn’t say.

She didn’t tell him that he’s just imagining things, or that it’s just a yearning for something that he doesn’t know he wants yet. No, he’s lost something, something important. So that only leaves one question...

What is it that he had lost?

 

* * *

 

Morgan is eleven when Tony finds her in his workshop, staring at a computer in the corner of the room.

“Hey, Maguna, what are you doing?” He asks her cheerfully. It isn’t uncommon for his daughter to come into his workshop and get on the computer while he works. However, the moment he makes a sound, she quickly closes out of whatever she had been looking at, turning to him while looking like a deer caught in headlights, her eyes wider than he’d ever seen them before.

“No-Nothing,” Morgan stutters, trying to look cool but obviously failing. Tony looks at her suspiciously.

“That didn’t look like nothing,” Tony says, putting his hands on his hips and raising an eyebrow.

“Well, it was. Nothing, I mean. It was nothing…” Morgan’s not known for stumbling over her words like this, and it’s starting to worry him.

“Okay then,” Tony backs off. He just has to hope that if it’s something dangerous, Morgan will trust him enough to tell him on her own. He doesn’t want to pressure her.

Morgan stays in her chair while Tony starts working on one of his projects for Spider-man. Every once in a while, Tony looks up and catches her just staring at the blank computer screen before glancing at him.

Besides that, everything is normal for the rest of the night. That is until he’s walking down the hallway after dinner only to hear Morgan and Pepper arguing in Morgan’s bedroom. The fact that they’re arguing isn’t strange—Morgan being as stubborn as him makes it easy for his daughter and wife to agree on things at times.

No, it’s not strange that they’re arguing.

It’s strange what they’re arguing about.

“Mom, why won’t you tell me what happened?”

“Morgan, there are some things from the past that should be left in the past.”

“But why? Why have you guys never said anything about him before? Why—”

“What’s going on in here?” Tony enters the room to see his Pepper and Morgan facing each other. Morgan’s is red with anger, but Pepper’s is white. Pale white, as if she’s seen a ghost—just like Bruce’s intern had looked so many years ago when he’d seen Tony after his graduation.

“Nothing,” Pepper says sharply, giving Morgan a pointed look. Morgan looks as if she wants to continue arguing, but closes her mouth in defeat at her mother’s glare.

“Man, I feel like everyone’s saying that these days,” Tony remarks, leaning against Morgan’s door frame. “Is there something I should know about?”

“Tony, we’re just talking about girl stuff,” Pepper says as if he can’t tell when she’s lying straight through her teeth. “This doesn’t involve you.”

Tony wants to protest, wants to force his wife to tell him the truth. But Pepper almost never keeps secrets from him, so if she’s keeping this one, it must be important that she keep it. So he nods and walks out of the room, stopping just in time to hear Pepper start to whisper to Morgan.

“Honey, I know it’s difficult, but I need you to drop it. Alright? Forget that you ever saw what you saw.”

“But _Mom—”_

“Morgan,” Pepper begs, and she sounds like she’s on the verge of tears. _“Please.”_

Silence. Then,

“Okay. Okay, I’ll drop it,” Morgan complies.

“Thank you,” Pepper whispers.

Tony walks away, searching every corner of his brain to try and think of what they could have been arguing about.

He comes up with nothing.

 

* * *

 

Six months later, Morgan is rescued by Spider-man.

They’re standing on his doorstep, Morgan bawling her eyes out as she explains to him what happened. He pulls her close, holding her tightly as she cries. After she calms down significantly, he sends her up to her room to get some sleep, and once she’s gone he turns to her savior.

“I can’t even express how grateful I am. Thanks for saving her—I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to her.”

“Well that’s my job, Mr. Stark,” Spider-man says with a wave of his hand, and the voice makes him freeze because he feels like he’s heard that voice before. Not only that but even though many people call him “Mr. Stark”, the way Spidey says it feels oddly familiar.

_“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good…”_

He shakes off the weird feeling.

“Please, call me Tony. Anyways, I have to admit, I am a very huge fan of your work,” Tony says. “This is going to make me sound creepy, but I’ve been keeping an eye on you for quite some time now, and I’m very interested in your abilities and your tech. Say, would you mind if we went down to my lab and looked at a few things? Just because you’re here.”

It’s true. Ever since he’d seen a video of the web-slinger fighting the Green Goblin, he’d been obsessed (in a healthy way, of course) with his gadgets and abilities. So far, he’d created many designs for possible gadgets and suits—including an Iron Spider suit.

“Yeah, no, I’d love that,” Spider-man agrees, and Tony leads him down into his workshop.

Spider-man gets on board with teaming up with him. Although the superhero requests to keep his identity secret, Tony finds himself trusting him—maybe it’s because he’s proven that he’s a good guy. After all, he’s been seen teaming up with the Avengers from time to time. The voice is familiar, and even after Spidey leaves he can’t get the voice out of his head.

He ends up on the couch with a massive headache as he hears the same words over and over and over again…

_“Mr. Stark!”_

“Tony? Are you alright?” Pepper asks concernedly, keeping her voice low.

He nods.

“I met Spider-man today, Pep,” Tony tells her, and he expects her to smile or laugh at the fact that Tony Stark, Iron Man, has a favorite superhero. Instead, she falters, looking down at the ground and then back up at him.

“That—that’s nice, honey,” Pepper says, a shaky smile on her face. “I’m going to bed. Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

He doesn’t sleep at all that night.

_“Mr. Stark!”_

It becomes a routine for Spider-man to come over to Stark Mansion at least four or five times a week. As that happens, Tony starts to be plagued with vivid dreams—dreams that feel so real, yet so out of reach. In each of them, he sees a boy who has Spider-man’s voice, but when he wakes he can never remember what the boy looked like in the dream. All he can remember is a blurry shape.

_“Mr. Stark!”_

And then, all of a sudden, he gets the answers he’s been looking for.

 

* * *

 

Tony’s questioning everything about his life as he stares at the hologram in front of him, which is displaying a blueprint for the Iron Spider suit.

The blueprint is dated February 2018.

Thirteen years ago.

The worst thing is, he has no memory of ever creating it.

He looks back up at Spider-man,

“Who… who the hell are you?”

“You know who I am, Mr. Stark,” Spider-man says quietly. “You’ve heard my voice before. Just… think.”

He tries. He tries to think, to remember, but all it does is give him a headache. He moves over to the kitchen area of his workshop and swallows a couple of Advil.

_“Mr. Stark!”_

And then it hits him.

“The dreams—you’re the boy from my dreams!”

_“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good.”_

He stumbles back, gripping the counters with his hands so hard that his knuckles are turning white. “I remember your voice. But I can’t remember who you are… or how I know you in the first place…” His head is pounding.

Spider-man looks at him for a moment before walking over to his backpack and unzipping it. The web-slinger takes what looks to be a picture frame out of his bag and takes a last look at it before handing it over to Tony. Tony takes it into his hands, flipping it over to see a photo of… himself.

It’s a picture of himself with a young teenage boy, who’s wearing a grin and holding up bunny ears behind Tony’s head. He has no recollection of this photo being taken, yet the smile the kid is wearing feels familiar—it’s a smile that Tony can see himself wanting to protect. Suddenly, his head is wracked with a painful stab, and the picture falls out of his hands and clatters to the floor.

_“Hey, Mr. Stark!”_

He slides down to the ground, holding his head in his hands and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Mr. Stark?”

Images flash in front of his eyelids, and the boy from the vivid dreams he’d been having started to become clearer and clearer.

_“Thank you, Mr. Stark. For everything.”_

His brain erupts in pain. He drums his fingers against his head, trying to concentrate on the boy’s face. He sees a figure in the distance and he reaches up, desperate to grab at it and pull it back down to Earth. He stretches out his arm, gritting his teeth with determination…

… and catches it.

_“If you died, I’d feel like that’s on me.”_

He raises his head slowly, his hands dropping so his fingers are just grazing the floor.

“Kid?”

Peter Parker.

His protege, his intern, his kid. His son.

His missing piece.

“Pete? Peter?”

Peter pulls off the mask to reveal his face. He’s crouching in front of him, and his expression is a mixture of so many different emotions: sadness, guilt, fear. Regret. Tony just stares at him for a moment, trying to process.

His kid is older, twelve years older, and though his face certainly proves that, nothing makes Tony want to cry more than looking into Peter’s eyes. He’d been through too much on his own, and the pain is apparent in his dark brown eyes. He reaches up to touch Peter’s face, running his fingers down the young man’s cheek.

He hates that his kid is hurting.

Tony starts asking questions, and Peter reminds him of Project X.

(He remembers being in that cold, dark room where it had been done).

But when he asks why, or how, the kid freezes, obviously searching for the right answer.

“I was just a kid,” Peter says brokenly, and all Tony can do is stare. Minutes pass in silence, and he watches Peter’s face crumble with every minute that passes—yet he can’t bring himself to say anything to the kid.

Peter shakily rises to his feet, and Tony wants to cry out and tell him not to move—because he doesn’t want his kid to slip through his fingers again. But his voice fails him, and Peter gives him a guilty look.  
  
“I—I should go,” Peter announces, taking a few steps back towards the shop doors. “But I’m sorry. For what I’ve done. Really. I… I am.” He turns around and heads for the doors, wringing his mask in his hands.  
  
And then he leaves.  
  
All Tony can do is stare at the door Peter had walked through, hoping that, by some miracle, Peter would come back through.  
  
He doesn’t.  
  
An hour later, Pepper cautiously enters his workshop, a sympathetic look on her face. She walks over to where he’s sitting and slides down onto the floor next to him, letting out a sigh.  
  
“He left,” Tony croaks. Pepper nods.  
  
“I know. Morgan told me.”  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony asks, feeling his blood start to boil. Why had this been kept from him for so long? Why had no one told him?  
  
“I wanted to,” Pepper whispers, “So badly. But I wasn’t the one who was able to tell you.”  
  
“Then who was?”

“Peter was,” Pepper says. “Tony… after Hydra, everyone tried everything they could—except for the obvious, of course, but the only person who could do that was Peter. Natasha and Clint spent months trying to find anything they could on the case, Bruce worked himself dry trying to discover a cure. But Peter… he almost lost himself trying to find the answers he was searching for. So when he decided to step back and move on, well… none of us tried to stop him.”  
  
And just like that, his anger dissipates.  
  
“I’ve missed him so much,” Pepper says quietly, and Tony realizes that her eyes are welling up with tears. She does her best to hold them back, but one escapes, leaving it to be wiped away by her hand. “He’s my kid too, Tony. But I had to let him go—for his sake.”  
  
And then Tony realizes that out of everyone, he had it the easiest. For the last twelve years, he had lived in near bliss, unaware of the tragedies that had split their family apart. Unaware that Pepper was mourning the loss of a boy that she considered a son, unaware that the Avengers were doing their best to fix things, unaware that Peter had spent twelve years juggling negative emotions while Tony just went on his merry way with his family.  
  
He had it the best. There’s no denying that.  
  
“Boss, Dr. Bruce Banner is calling you,” Friday says over the speakers.  
  
“Send it to voicemail,” Tony orders.  
  
“He says it’s an emergency and it involves Peter Parker, Boss.”  
  
“Put him through,” Pepper commands, standing up so she can see Bruce’s face pop up onto one of the workshop screens. “Bruce, what’s going on?”  
  
“Peter left my cabin about half an hour ago, but his wife says he hasn’t come home yet—and he’s not picking up his phone,” Bruce says, rather worriedly. “Can one of you try and get into contact with him?”  
  
Wife? Does Peter have a wife? What else had happened in the last twelve years that he had missed?  
  
Pepper immediately pulls out her phone and steps out of the room, leaving Tony alone with Bruce.  
  
“Is there reason to believe he’s in trouble?” he asks, furrowing his eyebrows.  
  
Bruce sighs. “Yes. _Someone—”_ he glares off camera “willingly offered him the information to Project X, so now we think he could be tracking the guy responsible down.”  
  
Natasha comes into the frame of the video—their relationship never fails to surprise Tony. “He would have gotten ahold of the information, either way, Bruce,” she says calmly. “This moment—him going after Campbell—is inevitable.”  
  
“So what, is he going to arrest the guy or something?” Tony urges them on, but he’s in no way assured when Bruce and Natasha share a look.  
  
“That’s best case scenario,” Natasha sighs, closing her eyes. “I… I think he’d do the right thing. But… I think it would help if someone went and pushed him in the right direction.”  
  
For a moment, Tony wonders if Natasha is speaking from prior experience, but he puts the thought aside. He needs to focus on finding Peter. Bruce and Natasha look at him expectantly, and Tony knows then and there that he has to be the one to go.  
  
“Alright,” Tony says, opening a locked drawer and pulling out a device that holds an Iron Man suit.  
  
“Give me the address.”

Even though he had pushes his suit to go as fast as it could, he still arrives at his destination with very little time to spare.

When he finds Peter with the gun pointed at the old man’s head, his heart stops, because Peter’s eyes are wild and emotional, and for a second, Tony is afraid that he won’t break through to the kid.

(But he’s not so much of a kid anymore, is he?)

But he does.

Peter drops the gun and walks out the front door, not even sparing Tony a glance, and it kills him to see his kid so haunted.

He stays behind to tie up the guy, telling Friday to alert the FBI before stepping out of his suit. Then, he himself goes outside and finds Peter sitting on the porch steps, looking out into the dark abyss of trees. With a sigh, he sits down on the porch next to Peter.

“I thought you’re retired from Iron Man, Mr. Stark,” Peter breaks the silence, giving him a glance. After mourning over the fact that apparently, Peter is never going to call him Tony, he responds.

"I am, but I needed a quick ride and none of my cars sufficed, believe it or not.” What Tony doesn’t tell Peter is that he hadn’t even allowed himself to waste time to go downstairs to the garage, or that he hadn’t even thought twice before opening up his workshop window and jumping out of it, the Iron Man metal encasing his body while he fell.

Peter avoids his eyes, choosing to look down at the ground instead. Tony sighs, finally able to understand what Peter must be feeling at this moment. The kid thinks Tony's upset, and he really can't blame Peter—he had acted pretty cold earlier.

“I’m not angry with you, Pete,” Tony says, and Peter nods.

“I know,” the kid says, “you’re disappointed.”

“I’m not, Peter,” Tony tries to reason with the kid, but when it’s obvious he’s not getting through, he sighs. “You were a sixteen-year-old kid who had already lost so much already. No one besides yourself blames you for wanting to give up and move on." Tony puts a hand on Peter's shoulder. Peter finally looks up at him, and Tony can’t help but notice that the kid’s eyes are red, and for a split second, he wonders how many times Peter cried and Tony wasn’t there to hold him. "You're my kid, and I want you to be happy. That's all I care about, Pete."

He pulls Peter in for a hug, holding him close and reaching up to touch the back of the kid’s head protectively.

“I’m happy now,” Peter whispers, his eyes welling up with tears, and Tony just pulls him closer, feeling his own eyes start to get wet.

All Tony wants for his kids is for them to be happy.

“Me too, kid. Me too.”

He knows that at some point, they’re going to have to get going home and face reality. They have twelve years of catching up to do, and Tony knows it’s not going to be a walk in the park to get their relationship back to what it used to be. But for now, he’s content to hold his son tight—after all, he has to make up for twelve years worth of hugs.

This is a great place to start.

 

* * *

 

Later that same night, he places the black picture frame up on a shelf in his workshop, stepping back to admire it once more.

Tony’s missing piece has been found at last.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hoped you liked it! Please let me know what you think, and if there's anything you'd like to see from this universe.


End file.
